Thirty years ago, the Brookline clinic shootings took the lives of Shannon Lowney and Leanne Nichols, leaving an indelible mark on the fight for reproductive freedom. This essay reflects on that day of terror, the escalating violence against clinics and providers, and the hypocrisy of a movement that calls itself “pro-life” while fostering harm. It honors the courage of those who continue to stand on the frontlines, offering care and protection in the face of relentless hostility, and calls for renewed commitment to defending the right to choose.
By Zoe
Trigger Warning: This essay contains discussions of gun violence, anti-abortion extremism, and the tragic loss of life during the Brookline clinic shootings. It also addresses themes of trauma and ongoing threats to reproductive rights. Reader discretion is advised.
Yesterday, December 30, marked the thirtieth anniversary of the Brookline clinic shootings – a devastating act of anti-abortion violence that shook our community and changed my life forever.
While others were busy shopping for boxing day bargains or taking care of last-minute details for their New Year’s Eve parties, I spent December 30th, 2024 remembering this event that seems to have largely been forgotten as we come to the close of the year. As someone who worked as a clinic escort in Brookline – volunteering to shield patients from harassment and intimidation as they walked from their cars to the clinic doors, often having to form a human barrier between them and screaming protesters – I know someone needs to remember, despite the current place we find ourselves in history.
Yesterday was the thirtieth anniversary of when an anti-abortion radical gunned down Shannon Lowney and Leanne Nichols and injured five others at two women’s health clinics in Brookline, Massachusetts, a place where I once lived.
This was not an isolated incident. For decades healthcare workers and patients have faced escalating violence – murders, bombings, arsons, assaults, clinic invasions, and countless other acts of terrorism.
There were three women’s health clinics on Beacon St. in Brookline. The murderer went to two of them. The murderer skipped the one in Coolidge Corner, the place I had worked as an abortion escort. The reason our clinic was left alone has never been revealed.
The day after the shootings, our stunned community marched down Beacon Street to remember the murdered and injured and to stand up to this heinous act of hate-filled domestic terrorism. Back then, I couldn’t believe how many people had shown up to participate and show their support for the march. There were thousands of people.
Today, it’s a different story. Today, it’s just another day.
I remember that back then, while we were marching past, a man stood outside the Coolidge Corner Clinic – the one that had been spared. He was holding up a sign that said, ‘I wish he had stopped here, too’.
That sign haunts me even thirty years later. Here was someone who claimed to be ‘pro-life,’ openly wishing for more death. He wanted the gunman to have killed more healthcare workers, more women serving their community. This wasn’t just hypocrisy – it was the movement’s true face revealed. While they preached about protecting life, they celebrated those who took it.
While they prayed outside our clinics, they harbored those who plotted violence within their ranks. That sign showed how the rhetoric of ‘life’ was just a thin veneer over their real agenda: control through terror. Whenever I revisit this memory, I am struck by the contradiction of that sign. So many supporters of the ‘pro-life’ movement seem to have no problem with those anti-abortion fanatics who act in ways that threaten or destroy life.
On Saturday, December 28th, 2024, I decided to do my own actions to pay respect to the memories of the women murdered in Brookline. I made a flyer with the photos of Shannon and Leanne, with information about their murders. On the other side was a list of some of the violence that anti-choicers, whom I have dubbed ‘antis’, have committed. It was a small act of protest, I know, but I felt the need to address those who, even thirty years later, still refuse to acknowledge the history of violence condoned by and aligned with their movement.
None of the clinics on Beacon St. are still open so I went to Planned Parenthood in Boston and Women’s Health Services in Brookline.
Planned Parenthood was first. As expected, there were antis protesting outside the entrance, poised to harass whomever dared attempt to enter.
As I walked toward the clinic, some of the antis moved toward me. I handed them my flyer.
“What’s this about?” one of them asked after looking at the photos.
I told her to read it.
She glanced at it briefly and said, “I do not believe the articles about the murders and injuries are true. We are not connected with the murders of these women.”
The antis claimed that the violence was random.
I told them to read the other side of the paper, which contained the list of all the violent actions the other antis had done in the name of the movement.
They said that the number of murders and times of violence were not necessarily accurate.
“None of this can be pinned on us,” they said, “We weren’t a part of it.”
“But you cannot have it both ways,” I said. “If you are part of the movement, you are connected to all the violence and murders.”
One of the other antis decided to get into the conversation. “The people who are pro-abortion are violent,” he told me.
I asked him, “Has anyone pro-choice ever killed one of you? Have there been any murders or bombings or break-ins or hidden cameras or stalking done against you by a pro-choice advocate?”
One of the women said, “I’m not sure but it probably happened.”
I told her that there is no record of violence to the antis from the pro-choice community.
When she was about to argue about it, I read the facts on the flyer, out loud, stating that it seemed they were illiterate.
All of the antis chimed in and said it was propaganda. I said, if they did not believe it was true, they could show me the other results.
They all walked away. One of the men rolled his eyes at me and muttered, “stupid, fucking progressive.”
“I thought hypocrisy is a sin” I said.
This hit a nerve. He turned around and walked toward me, in a threatening way. I did not move.
“You cannot take things in the bible out of context,” he said.
“That’s all you do,” I replied.
“It’s written in the New Testament that abortion is murder.”
“Show me where,” I said.
“Look for yourself,” he said.
“You can’t provide it because it isn’t true,” I said.
“One shall not kill babies,” he misquoted from the ten commandments.
“When did that commandment change?” I asked.
“It was inferred,” he said.
“I can see you’re getting angry, because I’m right.”
One of his friends finally pulled him away from the conversation. I handed his friends a few more flyers. One person simply balled it up and threw it on the ground.
“Littering is a crime and I’m going to call the police,” I said as I walked away. I took a photo and then pointed my phone at them, pretending to take their pictures. They freaked out, and I laughed and walked away. I pretended to call the police. They picked up the paper.
At the Brookline Village clinic, the same conversations repeated. The difference was these people became very defensive. One of them glared at me while supposedly praying.
When a woman started yelling at me, I said, “It looks like you’re overcompensating because you know you’re wrong. Usually, people argue because they are defensive of their lies. Read what I gave you and actually think if you want to be connected with this violence,” I told them.
Like the others, she said, “Pro-choicers are more violent.”
When I asked for examples, she had none.
I didn’t stay at this clinic as long as the other. I have done this type of arguing with antis for years and it often amuses me. But, on Saturday, I was overrun with the sadness of the deaths in Brookline and the fact that thirty years later we are still dealing with this same type of violence. Women are still not safe. We are still not able to control our lives.
I walked for 15 minutes to Coolidge Corner and saw the building where my clinic had been. No one had been hurt at this clinic on the murder spree that killed Leanne and Shannon. We were lucky, but I’ll never forget that we might not have been. Standing there, I felt the weight of all my years of escorting – the daily confrontations, the fear we pushed aside, the women we protected. These memories lived in every brick of that building.
Grief was poisoning me. I needed time to process and confront it, so I found myself walking to where the murders actually took place – a mile each way to where the other clinics used to be. Each step felt like a vigil. While I walked, I felt like I was paying homage not just to Shannon and Leanne, but to every clinic worker who faced violence for protecting women’s rights. I taped my flyers along Beacon Street, several in front of where the clinics used to be, marking these spaces of tragedy so people could learn, even remember. These buildings held our history, even if the clinics were gone.
I reflected on the march the night after the murders in 1994, the rally that happened in front of the state house. The people who have done so much and have lost even more. It wrenched my heart when I thought about all the violence past, present and future.
Since 1977, there have been 11 murders, 42 bombings, 200 arsons, 531 assaults, 492 clinic invasions, 375 burglaries, and thousands of other incidents of criminal activities directed at patients, providers, and volunteers. And that is only the stats until 2022. There has been even more violence to clinics, their staff and their clients in 2023 and 2024.
Different types of murders are happening now in different venues. Today, women are dying because they are being denied emergency care for ectopic pregnancies and incomplete miscarriages. Some women in states like Texas and Louisiana have to drive 15+ hours to reach the nearest clinic. Now, some states like Alabama and Idaho are proposing legislation to criminalize helping women cross state lines for medical care.
States are monitoring prescription records to track who receives abortion medication, restricting access to Plan B even for rape victims, and banning mifepristone despite its 20-year safety record. Doctors in Missouri and Tennessee face felony charges for providing standard reproductive healthcare. They are forcing women to carry non-viable pregnancies to term, even when it threatens their lives. Although I do not know them personally, I feel the deaths of Shannon and Leanne and the others who have been murdered over the years. I feel the deaths and injuries of women who are not receiving needed medical care because they are women.
From my years as a clinic escort, I’ve witnessed firsthand how the movement operates – from the man wishing death on my clinic, to the protesters who denied their connection to violence while threatening me with their actions. Their tactics haven’t changed, only evolved. The same people who screamed at patients on Beacon Street are now writing laws to trap women within state borders. The same movement that bombed clinics now blocks emergency medical care.
The base of the anti-choice movement is about control and violence, nothing else. I saw it thirty years ago outside our clinic doors, and I see it today in every new restriction, every denied treatment, every death that could have been prevented.
Violence Against Abortion Providers Continues to Rise Following Roe Reversal, New Report Finds
Murder on Abortion Row video from FrontLine
26 Years Ago, John Salvi Killed My Colleague. Now I Volunteer As An Abortion-Clinic Escort
-Zoe
